Saturday, May 30, 2009

{This first image was posted in the Great Falls Tribune, taken by their photographer}

We have had one of the worst weekends last weekend. Dan and I were called at one am Sunday morning and told that the building that my apartment building shares a wall with was on fire. It was a historic building we bought with my parents three years ago so I would have somewhere larger to move my scrapbook store into. I ended up selling the store about a year ago, but the new owner still has the store there, and we have 16 apartments above the store, with about 20 tenants.

Our building never caught fire (except for a little on the roof), but we now have almost 20 people with no homes due to the extensive water and smoke damge. Red Cross will put them up for three days and that expires soon, then they will have nowhere to go. So far we have been so blessed by people stepping forward to help and donations. We have managed to find temporary homes for everyone, and will try to help them find permanent new residents. Most of these people are low income, elderly, and have no means to get by without ending up on the street.

It was the most heartwrenching thing to watch all Saturday night. If you could mind sending prayers up that we can get help for our tenants to get them through, help them find homes. I woult truly appreciate it. We were told it would take most likely between 6-12 months to have the building fixed.

I am including some photos.

{This was shot on Sunday while they were still putting water on the building to keep fires from restarting. Our building is the one that is three stories tall. It looks like the fourth one in the line, but the first three, even though different colors on front, were all one building.}

{This shot is from the roof of our building looking into the Public Drug building.}